Category: Imagination

In order to have great success with creativity, I’ve learned to write everything down and imagine it being done in vivid detail.

The process of writing ideas down in a notebook help to you solidify what the ideas actually are. For example in software design, you may say let’s connect this screen with that screen. While the general idea is there to connect to screens, there are so many other factors that need to be decided like how do we render the contents of this view with that view if we merge them together? What technology changes are needed? What is the best order to do things in?

Writing this all down in a notebook and visualizing the answers to these questions will help you clarify your thinking. That way when you present your idea to other people, you are presenting a coherent well-thought plan as opposed to a vague idea.

A notebook also helps you understand the priorities because you can look at the other ideas in your notebook and decide which one merits being worked on at this time.

It’s very easy to get excited when you get a new idea. The bottom line is that writing it down will help you clarify the idea to a point where it is ready to come to life.

Every so often, I like to take a late night walk on Moonlight Beach and get lost in thought.

Tonight, I asked, “What is mastery?”

I came up with an intellectual definition (as opposed to a spiritual, physical or emotional one). Mastery is being able to see the details within the big picture–not just the details or the big picture but both.

A powerful technique for open ended, creative problem solving involves representing your goal as an object. Surround it with questions. Attach actions to the questions. You can also put a “delta” symbol in front of the questions, to stimulate change actions.